The 1 retro game that you couldn't bare the thought of not playing, ever!

I was just reading a thread and a guy claimed that he had never owned a console before eek and this got me thinking about how lucky I am to be 31 years old and to have been able to experience the greatest gaming era ever.

Im talking about the time when the NES and SEGA Master System were the best consoles around and the arcades were full of video games, not soul destroying, money guzzling fruit machines.

Could you imagine a childhood without gems like 'Super Mario World', 'Streets Of Rage', 'Sonic The Hedgehog', 'Duck Hunt', 'Golden Axe' & 'Shinobi'? (I could go on all day!)

So what Im asking is this, what game do you think defines your childhood and you coudlnt imagine a world without? (ie if it had never been created )

For example, for me personally, it would have to be 'Street Fighter II' (arcade, then later SNES). I used to visit the arcades with my m8s, take a £1 or so with me and play this game for hours. I used to hate it when people would muscle in on my game, by popping some cash in and challenging me. But they would soon realise that I was no noob on it and after a few Hadokens/Shoryukens, they would leave, red faced!

So, what game would you pick? (please give a reason and state what system it was on)

Sir Lancelot (Amstrad) - Pretty much the game we played at kids, before I got the Sega Mega Drive/Genesis. We played other games as well, but mostly this one.
Sonic 2 (Mega Drive/Genesis) - Need I say more?

Sir Lancelot (Amstrad) - Pretty much the game we played at kids, before I got the Sega Mega Drive/Genesis. We played other games as well, but mostly this one.
Sonic 2 (Mega Drive/Genesis) - Need I say more?

There might be others too.

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Awesome! I bet you could think of others. But this is exactly what Im talking about

Because it was the first game I've played that had an immersive universe, a sandbox-style game world where you could go where you wanted (It had thousands of planets to visit in hundreds of star systems), your own customizable flagship vessel, a storyline firmly on the border between humor and serious actions, an incredible soundtrack (for its time, obviously, within the constraints of the rather primitive sound output of the PC back then), puzzles to solve, battles to fight, more than 20 types of ship to fight with or against, enemies and friends to converse with and a galaxy-sized threat to defeat.

Seriously, even some 18 years after it came out, it is still a very, very good game (It has an open source clone I play quite often with improved, but still basic 2D, graphics and re-composed music which is really awesome).

Because it was the first game I've played that had an immersive universe, a sandbox-style game world where you could go where you wanted (It had thousands of planets to visit in hundreds of star systems), your own customizable flagship vessel, a storyline firmly on the border between humor and serious actions, an incredible soundtrack (for its time, obviously, within the constraints of the rather primitive sound output of the PC back then), puzzles to solve, battles to fight, more than 20 types of ship to fight with or against, enemies and friends to converse with and a galaxy-sized threat to defeat.

Seriously, even some 18 years after it came out, it is still a very, very good game (It has an open source clone I play quite often with improved, but still basic 2D, graphics and re-composed music which is really awesome).

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Ive never played it, but i have to admit, for back then it sounds very good.

Ive never played it, but i have to admit, for back then it sounds very good.

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It was and still is

If I had to pick another one, that would be Star Wars: TIE Fighter (PC, 1994). The campaign was linear, but the missions were varied and extremely fun. Plus flying an unshielded TIE craft vs. the pesky rebels and their shielded X-Wings, Y-Wings, B-Wings and A-Wings was pure adrenaline. I broke two joysticks playing that thing to death, lol.

You cheated, you picked 2. But as they are classics, I will let you off LOL about Golden Axe.

What system did you play JSW and MM on? Spectrum, Amstrad ?

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I played on a Spectrum, before moving on to a Commodore 64. My first computer was the Sinclair ZX81 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ZX81), the external 16k RAM module allowed me to play this other classic:

I remember sitting for more five hours in front of the ZX81 with four friends playing a flight simulator: the controls required input from everbody and there were various hands controlling flaps, velocity and generally interfering on the touch-sensitive keyboard (I made pads by sticking together the little loops of paper used to stop pages from tearing in ring-binders): we were finally successful.

I played on a Spectrum, before moving on to a Commodore 64. My first computer was the Sinclair ZX81 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ZX81), the external 16k RAM module allowed me to play this other classic:

I remember sitting for more five hours in front of the ZX81 with four friends playing a flight simulator: the controls required input from everbody and there were various hands controlling flaps, velocity and generally interfering on the touch-sensitive keyboard (I made pads by sticking together the little loops of paper used to stop pages from tearing in ring-binders): we were finally successful.

Those were the days

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LOL, I used to love the little rubber keys on the Spectrum. Commodore 64 = The C64 was my first computer. But I used to play the Spectrum and Amstrad round my m8s house. I used to love karnov and Gauntlet on it

For me it was track & field on the megadrive . . . or (seeing as im a young buck compared to you lot ) Sega VRally on the PS1 . . . Ah the memories

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V-Rally on the PS1 was great fun. I remember playing it round a friends and as I crashed into a tree, the car shot straight up into the air, as in vertically! it didnt come down for a good 3-4 minutes.................we were in stiches, talk about a funny glitch

God, I can't name just one here! C64 classics like Jumpman defined gaming for me when I was a little Thrackan, but for me, gaming really took off on PC. Basically, Lucasarts defined PC gaming for me in the Adventure, FPS and space flight genre

But if I had to choose 1 game, I'd go with Jumpman. Just because that's the first game I played and liked.

Joust, just because it pisses me off so much (and I'm pretty sure thats universal). Also it always make me wonder who was the guy who said "I love the idea of jousting, so lets make them do it on ostriches that fly"

I'm still quite young (turned 18 not too long ago)... anyways I really liked Final Fantasy 7 and 8. Even before that I had a 3DO... the Shockwave series was a favorite.

I vaugely remember playing a game called Joust on my origional black and white Gameboy... I had a lot of games, and I actually had 3 Gameboys... this really old monochome one, the pocket black and white one, and the pocket color one... at some point in time I lost posession of everything except for the black and white Gameboy and Battle Bull. I even had a gameshark... gah.